UX Australia 2017

Karina Smith

Karina is an award-winning designer, educator and humanist who has worked with some of Australia’s largest corporations, governments and social-enterprises over the past 20 years to design complex service transformation programs.

Karina brings a unique combination of experience in human-centred design, technology and psychology to look at problems from multiple perspectives. This helps her to fulfil her personal mission which is to improve people’s lives, starting with the application of universal themes such as empathy, curiosity, beauty, function and simplicity.

Karina joined Meld Studios in 2015. During this time her work has focused on uncovering new ways for banks to support small businesses; influencing policy and legislation reforms; designing places and communities; and explore the future of retail.

Karina is keenly involved in design education and design leadership, regularly lecturing at universities and sharing insights with industry. She works alongside teams within organisations to help build their design capability, and has developed frameworks and toolkits that help designers and non-designers alike to build deep empathy with their customers and apply design methods to transformation.